More Barn Owls

This little guy decided to take a rest down on the floor, in the corner of the main production building at work. I'm about 6 feet from him.

Did somebody blink?

Motorcycle Show and Swap Meet

The annual show and swap meet at the Elks Lodge was today. So I set the Indy 500 on record, and rode the beastly Miyata over. I didn't see many swap meet parts I needed, but was part of a few conversations between old timers talking about how rare and valuable an old crusty Honda S90 is. "When was the last time you saw an S90, sonny?" "Um, I've got four of them on the side of my garage." Here are some snaps, with a few captions.

Stunning BSA:

Front forks on the BSA

Hot little Rudge:

How the Ariel Square Four gets its name:

This was one of about a dozen original crusty old bikes:

Landspeed racer, complete with supercharger:

This was one of three bikes with mixed chassis and engines. This was a Greeves and a Triumph:

Love these old school leading link front ends:

Another crossbreed:

Great weather, great bikes, and a lot of old codgers shooting the shit about bikes. My kinda event.

Old Photos

Just some photos of yours truly:

L to R: Sis amanda, Cousin Lori, Mom and her sweet afro, and me

Me, sis, mom, and Gampa, playing his banjo:

Grandpa Dick and Grandma Pauline:

Me and Sis, and my bright blond hair:

Me at 1 day old, with Dad wearing his finest robe:

New Mash Tun

I realize I'm pretty far behind the times when it comes to my brewing equipment, but I finally built a mash tun out of a 5-gal cooler. I made up a false bottom out of some stainless sheet, drilling a bunch of 3/32" holes in it. The end result was more room for mashing all grain recipes. I also built a simple wort chiller too, which did a great job of cooling the wort down to 70 degrees in a matter of minutes.

Stainless false bottom:

Mash tun, made out of cooler:

Tonight I broke out the equipment and brewed up a 2.5gal Imperial Red Rye recipe:

- 3 pounds of two row

- 1 pound of crystal 60

- 1 pound of rye

- 1 pound of belgium aromatic

1/2oz of magnum at 45 minutes

1/2oz of cascade at 20 minutes

1/4oz of citra at 5 minutes

1/4oz of crystal at 5 minutes

1/2 teaspoon irish moss

1/2 teaspoon gypsum

1 packet S-05 Dry yeast

OG = 1.079

Estimated gravity of 8.9% abv

IBU = 46

Bisquit Malt Pale Ale

Owl Video

Co-worker Brian got video. Apparently he drank 10 gallons of coffee before shooting this, as he is shaking like a demon.

Owl Cam

We have four owl nests at work. This is just one of them, located about three stories up in the batch plant. We have to scare momma owl out of the room, which gives us about 2 minutes to take pictures and get the hell out before she comes back.

Baby owls are ugly. And no, the two little ones in the green spotlight (from Brian's camera) are not dead. They are just smaller.

Kona Brown

Kona Brown, with toasted coconut chips. Not bad, and I usually dislike coconut flavored things. The toasty flavor is what dominates, and makes it interesting.

Mead sampling

Sampling some meads. Lemon, pyment (grape), and blood orange tea, from top to bottom. All three still needs more time in fermentation, but they are getting better. Especially the lemon.

Dogfish Head Aprihop

Dogfish Head Aprihop.  12oz., 7% abv.

Quite possibly, one of the only DFH brews I like.  Mostly because it is fairly mild.  I get little to no apricot aroma or flavor.  Which just left a nice IPA type base with a bit of alc warmth.  Good, but not great.  And not really apricotty.

AMA Sears Point 2012 pics

We had a little weekend get away, and managed to spend a few hours at Sears Point at the AMA races.  Just some random shots:

Front brake rotor on the EBR 1190rs

Harley XR1200 race bike fuel tank.  Go Canada! 

Exhaust from the Attack Performance Kawasaki ZX10R

The Attack guys let me come into the garage and snap pics up close

KTM team, huddled around Stefen Nebel after P1

EBR team bikes.  They had a great weekend, with A podium on Saturday

Ass end of a Yamaha R1 Superbike

Ben Bostrum looking over P1 data in the hot pits

The KTM, torn down between sessions

Beer club meeting

Beer club meeting

Homebrew Club Awards

Today was the 2012 Chico Homebrew Club Competition awards party.  We arrived around 1pm, just in time to start sampling some of the 179 beers that were entered.  At 2:30, we got to chow down on some potluck, including everything from tri-tip, to seafood salad, to a lovely potato salad Susan made with beer.  Shortly after, they started announcing the awards.

Long story short, I ended up placing 3rd in the cider category for my Pomegranate Cider (which was a big hit with the ladies at the party)  and a 1st place for my Mulling Cider Mead.  Susan also bought some raffle ticketsm and I came home with a 4# can of extract and a growler jug.  Both items I can use.

Me and the fly, after some grub.

What's that?  Two medals?  Oh yeah...

Leafer Madness Imperial Pale Ale

Leafer Madness. Lovely aroma so far...

And a great taste too.  Usually, 9% and 100+ IBU beers aren't my favorite.  But this has a nice malt sweetness that keeps the alc warmth subdued, while the strong hop aroma and flavor lead to a mellow bitterness.  Quite nice!

owl eggs

2012 Chico Home Brew Competition

We just completed two days of beer judging and sipping, as part of the 2012 Chico Home Brew Competition. I volunteered to be Chief Steward, and Susan volunteered to be a steward.  That means we keep our table full of judges full of beers and score sheets, and make sure they don't run out of cups, bread, and water.  We also get to sip every beer our tables are judging, and any other beers from other tables that received high scores.

Because we were shy of judges, we ended up judging Stouts and IPAs yesterdays from 1 to 4.  We had four tables, and it was very low key.  Today we had 14 tables, so it was a bit more hectic for the first few rounds.  Then we eased into a good rhythm, and before we knew it, lunch was being served.  Sierra Nevada put out a great taco bar spread, and opened up the taps.  Then we had a quick tour of the facilities, including a trip to the hop room, where we were given 1 gallon bags to shove whole hops into.  I grabbed just a tad more than a pound of Citra hops, and a little bit of crystal.

A few pics:

Don't be distracted by the gun show

My table, one of two judging IPAs

Susan cleaning and organizing empty bottles.  Just like at home!

Knee Deep Beer Company Tanilla

Knee Deep Beer Company Tanilla. Very smooth, full bodied, with a hint of vanilla. Nice.

St Peter's Sorgham Beer

Susan grabbed me a gluten free beer for Easter. It was sorta in that realm of a green bottle beer. The irony is that it came in a green bottle beer. Very light bodied, light flavor, with a hint of skunk.

Easter Booze

The Easter Bunny brought me some booze!

More beer sampling

tasting two different versions of my vienna lager